


press shift to run

by gardenfox



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Gamer AU - Freeform, M/M, Nuisances to Lovers, Online Friendship, Streamer AU, but it's not a university au, but only for a few minutes, kanata and shinobu and chiaki show up, rated t but only bc they SWEAR a few times Gasp, they're in university
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29089362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardenfox/pseuds/gardenfox
Summary: It’s become a fairly regular routine. Midori finishes cramming at the library, gets back to his shared apartment, heats up some leftovers, and starts up his computer.
Relationships: Nagumo Tetora/Takamine Midori
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	press shift to run

It’s become a fairly regular routine. Midori finishes cramming at the library, gets back to his shared apartment, heats up some leftovers, and starts up his computer.

He slips into his chair, tapping his feet against the floor as he opens up a browser and starts setting up his stream. As much as he’d like to play Stardew Valley—his usual— he’s not interested in getting up to get his Switch from the living room.

He sighs and taps his fingers against his desk before opening Minecraft. He has a world he wants to work on anyways. Whatever.

When he finally gets his stream up and running, the comments slowly start rolling in. Most are asking why he isn’t playing Stardew Valley, a few others saying they’re happy they made it to one of his rare Minecraft streams.

Midori only remembers to check the chat every fifteen minutes or so. Frankly, he barely speaks during his streams at all, other than to make offhand remarks to himself, so it’s rare that he bothers replying to more than a few comments each stream at all.

> **_j_3233:_ ** _what streamers do you watch_

“What streamers do I watch?” Midori reads out. He lifts his hand from the mouse, reaches over to the bottle of juice on his desk.

“Uh, mostly just my friends,” Midori admits after a quick sip. “Shinobu and Shinkai.”

Shinkai is the reason why Midori even started streaming. It was back when Midori was still a third-year, Shinkai freshly graduated. No longer around to hang out in Midori’s room and play games together, Shinkai had goaded him into starting a small stream.

“It’ll be like I’m still there to hang out with you guys,” Shinkai had sighed wistfully, Shinobu giving an awkward shoulder shrug when Midori had looked over for support.

Initially, it’d only been for Shinkai and Shinobu to watch. They’d originally used Discord—more private—but a glitchy stream one night had pushed them over to Twitch.

“Did you see that you had _9_ _viewers_ last night?” Shinobu had asked him the following morning when they arrived at school.

And that had been the start of it. He then had both the pressure of Shinobu, starry-eyed and giddy over strangers watching Midori’s stream, and Shinkai, who’d text him every Thursday with a _can’t wait for your stream on Saturday :)_.

It’d all been a little too much at first—even with only a small crowd of 20 or so viewers at the time—but Midori had gotten used to it over time. 

But two years later, with both Shinobu and Shinkai streaming weekly on their _own_ channels—Shinobu playing horror games every now and then and Shinkai streaming Animal Crossing to a devout fanbase—he felt a little more at ease about the whole…streamer thing.

Midori caps his juice bottle and leans forward to read a few more comments before he resumes playing.

> **_meowska:_ ** _do u watch tetomomo_

“Tetomomo? No, I don’t know who that is.”

> **_natsu00ki:_ ** _lmao can you even imagine a collab between them_
> 
> **_mei_jy23:_** _☠️_

Midori raises an eyebrow, stretches, cracks his knuckles, then goes back to his game. This underground city isn’t going to build itself, after all.

* * *

It happens accidentally. 

Midori is sitting on the subway a few days later, the back of his head resting against the window, searching for something to watch. 

He’s looking through his recommended Twitch feed—a last resort when he’s sick of his playlists and too mentally drained to text his friends. He’s ready to close the app and just watch something mindless on YouTube when a familiar username catches his eye.

> **_tetomomo_ **
> 
> _IGNORING HATERS IN THE DESERT_
> 
> _Minecraft_

Midori hesitates for a moment before opening the stream. 

“—was certain I was gonna tank it, but I actually got an 82%!”

Midori decides he’s opened the stream at exactly the _wrong_ time because the next thing he hears is _tetomomo_ shrieking through his earbuds.

Rightfully so, he guesses, seeing as _tetomomo_ is currently being attacked by—mummies?

Midori brings his phone closer to his face, squints at the screen. They _look_ like mummies, but he’s never encountered anything like them the few times he’s tried his hand at survival mode. 

Admittedly, he’s pretty clueless when it comes to Minecraft in general. He plays in creative mode once every few months, uses a few mods to add extra animals to his worlds, and goes on his merry way.

“—going to get totally fucked by these booby-traps.” Midori hears when he zones back into what’s happening.

Whoever _tetomomo_ is, they have energy levels that far surpass those of Midori. Still, he can’t find it in himself to click out _quite_ yet.

He chews the inside of his cheek before swiftly tapping his fingers against the screen.

> **_midoriSB04:_ ** _is he using some kind of mod?_

_Tetomomo_ finally exits whatever maze he’d been creeping through and is met with a hazy horizon. Around him is nothing but desert, as promised by his stream title.

> **_mizutama44:_ ** _yeah atum 2 mod_
> 
> **_TETSUYA0X:_ ** _Atum 2_
> 
> **_xtarebaa:_ ** _wait midori’s in the chat?_
> 
> **_sayu_133:_ ** _Midori!!!_

Oh, no.

> **_tom_yom:_ ** _whose modri_
> 
> **_fornonix:_ ** _Stardew streamer._
> 
> **_mist0:_ ** _midori are u friends with tetora!!!_

Okay, so, maybe Midori has amassed a big enough following that it’s sometimes a problem when he drops into other people’s streams.

He watches as an influx of messages comment on his arrival in the chat.

 _Tetomomo_ —no, _Tetora_ —pauses his crafting to survey the madness taking place in the chat.

“Midori? Who’s that?”

More repeats of the same comments flush the chat, dropping his username and labeling him as a Stardew Valley aficionado.

“Well then, hi, Midori!” Tetora chirps before he returns to crafting a sword, only to immediately round a corner and attack a mummy.

If he wasn’t so embarrassed over all the attention, Midori may have found the sequence of events somewhat amusing. Instead, he tugs his windbreaker collar up higher and swiftly exits the stream.

* * *

Midori is finishing up his stream the following week when he notices the speed of the chat kicking up a notch.

He tries to fight back a yawn as he blinks sleepily and leans in to read the messages.

> **_ken094:_ ** _TETORA?_
> 
> **_cyaxx:_ ** _tetomomo Tetora?_
> 
> **_tetomomo:_ ** _LOL_
> 
> **_monaks:_ ** _i KNEW they were friends!!_

There are far too many messages to see what message _tetomomo_ had first sent to kickstart this chaos. 

Midori’s eyebrows furrow, drawing in even more when he sees the brief flash of a sub alert from _tetomomo_.

He mumbles a quick “thanks for watching” before ending the stream. Pulling his legs up underneath him, he stares at his screen. After a few minutes, he searches up _tetomomo_.

Midori isn’t really sure just why this whole thing has him so flustered. Well, he’s never had another big streamer make a fuss about him. He’s used to staying in his own little bubble, briefly acknowledging his audience when he must.

Having both the attention of a larger creator and all of _their_ fans? It’s just a little overwhelming.

His cursor hovers over the follow button for a painfully long amount of time before he finally clicks it. Only a few minutes pass before he gets a message notification. He closes his eyes and exhales through his nose before opening it.

> **_tetomomo:_ ** _dude you neej to talk more!!_
> 
> **_tetomomo:_ ** _*need_
> 
> He frowns, gets to work typing.
> 
> **_midoriSB04:_ ** _i’m just playing games though._

He’s ready to exit the browser and shut down his computer when another series of messages pop up.

> **_tetomomo:_ ** _watch my stream tomorrow!!! ypu’ll get better at learning how tor ead chat_
> 
> _and play at the same time!_

Midori scowls and hunches over his keyboard in irritation. Maybe this Tetora guy should get better at _typing_ before he comes after Midori’s streaming technique.

> **_midoriSB04:_ ** _i’m fine._

* * *

At least, Midori likes to _think_ he’s fine, even as he opens Tetora’s stream the next day after he’s made himself comfortable on his bed inside a blanket cocoon.

Tetora’s messing around with the Atum 2 mod again, trying to break into a pyramid. It’s not going well, however, from what Midori is able to gather.

“I swear, there was like _no one_ here two seconds ago,” Tetora mutters as he’s ambushed on all sides.

Midori crosses his ankles. Uncrosses them. Holds his phone steady.

> **_midoriSB04:_ ** _you don’t seem very good at this._

He sends it right after Tetora manages to squeeze through the pyramid entrance and has a chance to read through the chat.

“Midori!” Tetora all but yells, and Midori regrets having his volume up so loud. “I didn’t think you’d actually show up.”

The comments again become a mess of people trying to figure out who Midori is, with a handful of people filling in those unaware.

“I’m actually really good at this, for your information,” Tetora begins to argue—

—right before falling through a hole in the pyramid floor.

Midori rolls his eyes and does not even _consider_ smiling. Not even for a second.

* * *

It’s not long before Teteroa is in Midori’s Twitch messages nearly every day, either giving him unprompted streaming critique or pestering Midori to watch his own streams. Eventually he badgers Midori into adding him on Discord, where he assaults him with even more frequent messages.

Midori isn’t sure how to feel about it, other than it makes him queasy each time his phone lights up with a message from Tetora, sending him his newest favorite meme or something stupid one of his professors said—queasier still when Shinobu eyes him curiously each time Midori disappears into his room to watch one of Tetora’s streams.

He’s minding his business one night, watching god knows what on YouTube, when he gets a message from Tetora.

> **_tetora:_ ** _are U busy??.?_

Midori sighs because he can’t help but sigh when it comes to Tetora. And yet he still finds himself answering almost immediately.

> **_midori:_ ** _not really. why._

He waits for a second, watches as Discord flashes a brief _tetora is typing…_

> **_tetora:_ ** _whyd you put a period after why, it’s Scary likee that…_

It’s all the warning Midori receives before Tetora is calling him. His flight or fight instincts kick in, but not _well_ apparently because in his haste to decline the call he jerks the mouse too hard and accepts it instead.

“Midori!” Tetora chirps. “Hello!”

“Um, hi,” Midori manages.

“You don’t have to be all shy. It’s just us,” Tetora says, as if he and Midori have known each other for two years instead of two months. “I want to show you this new mod I downloaded!”

And he does. 

And Midori is loath to admit that it’s actually sort of fun to watch Tetora goof around in creative mode, building completely unrecognizable things and generally being completely ridiculous. Midori is having _fun_ and feels comfortable enough to joke around with him, talk about nonsense he wouldn’t normally bring up in a stream chat.

It’s more carefree than his public streams, where Tetora seems to amplify his already brazen personality to entertain his audience. Like this…he’s more palatable. 

He even manages to get a snicker out of Midori at one point, which Midori instantly regrets.

“Did you just _laugh_?” Tetora all but gasps.

“No,” Midori lies.

“You did. You totally did!” 

A silence, only the _click-click_ of Tetora’s mouse audible. 

“You should laugh more often, I think.” Tetora clears his throat and hastily adds, “You’ll get more viewers that way.”

Midori wants to die.

* * *

They fall into a pattern: watching each other’s streams, texting throughout the day, messing around on Tetora’s private Minecraft server when neither of them feels like doing their assignments.

It’s kind of nice, Midori has to admit. As much as he loves Shinobu and Shinkai, it’s sort of fun to have someone new pushing him outside of his comfort zone. Or whatever.

What’s _not_ nice is—

“Do you have a secret boyfriend?”

Midori startles at the question and nearly drops the frying pan he’s attempting to saute vegetables in.

“No! What? _No!”_

“Okay.” Shinobu shies away from Midori’s space, stuffs his hands inside his hoodie pockets. He hardly sounds convinced. “It’s just that you’ve been on your phone a lot more lately, and sometimes I hear you talking with someone in your room.”

Midori groans and sets the frying pan down so he can properly drag his hands down his face, which is warm with embarrassment beneath his palms.

“It’s just a…friend,”—god, does it feel painful to finally admit that—"that I made on Twitch.”

Shinobu brightens up at this. “A friend? Through Twitch?”

“Yeah,” Midori sighs. “He’s kind of loud, so I try to keep my door closed when we’re talking.”

“Wow!” Shinobu is buzzing now, and he wastes no time in returning to his duties of chopping more vegetables with newfound vigor. “We should all play something together sometime!”

“I-if you want, of course,” Shinobu adds, shrugging.

“Yeah, that’d be fun.” Midori can feel his stupid heartbeat slowing back down to a normal pace.

Before they finish dinner, Shinobu gets a text from Shinkai asking them to keep their weekend free.

“He wants to hang out on Saturday,” Shinobu reads from his phone.

“Saturday.” Midori nods and pushes his uneaten vegetables around his plate. “Got it.”

* * *

Midori regrets accepting Shinkai’s invitation when they arrive at the street market he’d suggested. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Shinkai. It’s more so that he doesn’t want to see—

“Hey, Kanata, there they are!”

Ahead of them are Shinkai’s university friends, one of whom Midori has already had the misfortune of meeting three or four times.

Midori rolls his eyes and sighs at the sound of Morisawa’s voice, and Shinobu has to drag him along by the sleeve to meet the others.

Shinkai waves as they approach and stands up from the fountain ledge he’s sitting on to greet Midori and Shinobu.

“Hello,” Shinkai smiles. 

The weather is frighteningly nice—blue skies, sun warming their backs, and a gentle breeze dancing along their forearms. It has the potential to be a perfect day.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you guys in forever!” Morisawa chirps from beside Shinkai.

 _And it’s_ still _too soon,_ Midori thinks. He’s prepared for an onslaught of questions and comments courtesy of Morisawa, but it never comes.

Instead, Morisawa nods to his left, voice never quite reaching an acceptable volume.

“Sengoku, you’ve met Nagumo before, right?”

“Yes.” Shinobu nods, gives a small smile at the individual beside Morisawa. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Nagumo, this is Takamine,” Morisawa gestures to Midori.

Morisawa is something of a spectacle, the way he takes over any situation with his undeniable energy and booming voice.

But when Midori gives a proper look to the person standing beside him, he thinks he’s finally met someone who rivals Morisawa’s energy.

Nagumo has to be at least a full head shorter than Midori, but he stands like he’s ready to attack at a moment’s notice. His eyes are intense as they meet Midori’s, and Midori has to force himself to not shy away as he greets him.

“Nice to meet you!” Nagumo all but yells, and for a moment Midori just stands there wondering why he sounds so familiar until—

_Oh no._

He _can’t_ be Tetora, right? Like, that’d be an absurd coincidence, right?

Okay, he needs to relax. Midori is doing what he does best, which is freaking out over absolutely nothing. It’s not like Tetora’s voice is uber-unique—plenty of guys have similar-sounding voices. Plus, he’d only heard him say, like, _one_ sentence. He’s totally overreacting.

Though, it begs the question: ...is he really that eager to hear Tetora’s voice? No, that’s not worth unpacking. It’s just because they’d chatted the night before, nothing more than that.

Midori gives nothing more than an awkward nod, which goes largely unnoticed because Morisawa is already corralling them off in another direction, rambling on about some hole-in-the-wall shop he’d seen that sells old comics.

Morisawa and Nagumo take the lead, chattering away a few paces of them while Midori, Shinobu, and Shinkai trail behind. Shinkai and Shinobu are talking about their classes, and Midori is trying to focus on the conversation, but he’s mostly just trying to puzzle out the current situation.

They finally arrive at the store, which is packed full of just about every geeky thing imaginable. The bell above the door rings as they enter, and a tired-looking guy looks up from behind the counter before going back to his magazine.

Midori makes a beeline for the back of the store where he spots a few plushie keychains. If he’s here, he might as well make the most of it.

He can hear Morisawa all the way across the store but chooses to ignore it as he parses through the store’s keychain collection.

“You’re really tall, dude!”

Midori startles at the noise and turns around to see Nagumo sheepishly rubbing his neck.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“It’s okay. I’m—” Midori flounders a bit because up close, Nagumo is actually sort of…cute? His hair is peppered with red streaks and a touch unruly, but Midori half-suspects it’s styled like that intentionally. He finally comes up with a semi-relevant reply. “I wish I was shorter.”

Nagumo scrunches up his nose at this and shakes his head.

“You really don’t,” Nagumo insists. He takes a step closer and eyes the little radish character Midori had been surveying before he showed up. “No one believes me when I say I’m a university student.”

“Well, that’s better than everyone thinking you’re intimidating before you even open your mouth,” Midori says, taking a tiny step to his left so as to keep some distance between them.

He can’t help but _still_ think Nagumo sounds an awful lot like Tetora. Was he just experiencing Stockholm Syndrome?

“You’re totally not intimidating,” Nagumo argues, putting his hands on his hips. “Your face is too nice.”

Midori’s eyes must go a little wide because Nagumo hurries to add, “I mean your face just looks nice. I mean, not like your face is nice-looking—just that you look like you’d _be_ nice.”

“I-I mean, I’m not saying you’re _ugly_ ,” Nagumo stutters out, face pinching up in embarrassment and Midori suspects that his cheeks are just as rosy as Nagumo’s by this point.

“It’s fine, I understood what you meant,” he says, desperate to end this conversation.

“Right, um.” Nagumo fiddles with some of the keychains in front of him before he seems to regain his cool. “Say, have we met before? You sound kind of familiar?”

Midori must look like a deer in the headlights based on the strange look Nagumo is giving him. This _has_ to be confirmation that he’s Tetora, right?

He’s trying to formulate an answer when Morisawa yells at them from down the aisle.

“C’mon! You guys wanna get ice cream?”

Midori has never been so relieved to hear Morisawa’s voice.

He races out of the store and swiftly reclaims his spot beside Shinobu as they make their way to the ice cream place. When they arrive, he makes it a point to sit as far away from Nagumo as possible.

He keeps his head down as he picks at the mango ice cream he ordered, only joining in on the conversation when absolutely necessary.

Of course, it all comes crumbling down, and at the hands of none other than Morisawa Chiaki.

“This pin is so cute, Kanata.” Morisawa says, examining a clownfish pin Midori had bought for Kanata the last time they’d visited the aquarium. “Where’d you get it?”

“Midori actually got it for me at the aquarium a few months ago,” Kanata says, resting his hand in his palm and blinking slowly.

“Good taste.” Morisawa gives a nod in Midori’s direction, and everything that happens after that is absolute chaos.

Midori can practically see the cogs turning in Nagumo's head in the milliseconds that follow.

“ _You’re_ Midori?” Nagumo stands up so fast that his chair squeaks as it’s pushed backward. “As in _midoriSB04_?”

A few other people in the ice cream joint are looking over at their table, and Midori wishes the ground would swallow him whole. Immediately.

Before he has a chance to answer, Shinobu pipes up with, “You watch Midori?”

“I knew it! I totally knew you sounded familiar!” Tetora is still staring at Midori, eyes ablaze before he seems to remember Shinobu had asked him a question. “We’re online friends!” 

Nagumo slams his palm down on the table, leans forward a bit as he grins wildly at Midori. “I’m Tetora!”

Yeah, he can see why Tetora is friends with Morisawa now.

* * *

It’s a bit criminal that Midori doesn’t even have a single peaceful hour after getting back from their group hangout before Tetora is blowing up his phone with messages, losing his mind over the events that unfolded earlier.

Midori wants to go to sleep and never wake up because this whole situation is humiliating due to a vague reason that he can’t quite identify.

Instead, two days later, Tetora insists on calling him. They’ve gotten into the habit of calling one another once or twice a week, but this will be the first time since they’ve properly _met_ , and—

Well, it's just _weird._ Because now when Tetora says something funny, Midori will just remember the way he looked as he was cracking jokes in an attempt to make everyone laugh as they walked through the street market and the way his eyes lit up when Morisawa would ruffle his hair or throw him a compliment.

So, when he begrudgingly accepts Tetora’s call, he’s a ball of nerves.

How can he not be? It’s just such a strange situation.

“Midori!”

But if Tetora thinks anything about it is weird, he doesn’t let it affect his facade.

“How are you?”

And Midori can almost convince himself everything is relatively normal, except his stomach feels a bit queasy each time he remembers that Tetora has an actual face and existence beyond their computers.

“Now that we know we live so close to each other, we should totally hang out sometime!”

And any semblance of normalcy Midori was starting to feel is completely annihilated. 

“I actually gotta go—I completely forgot about an essay I have due tomorrow…” Tetora begins before Midori has a chance to come up with some sort of response, or rather _excuse_. “I’ll message you about it!”

And that’s how Midori finds himself waiting for Tetora at a nearby cafe the following weekend. He’s camped out at a far corner table, wringing his hands together as he waits for Tetora to arrive. He’s yet to touch his cappuccino, and it’s probably going to be cold by the time he finally takes a sip. Maybe he still has time to bail and say he got sick before—

“Midori! Hey!”

He turns to see Tetora bounding over towards his table, the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder swinging around wildly.

“Sorry I’m late. Morisawa made me study with him this morning.” Tetora wrinkles his nose at this, and it’s almost sort of a tiny bit cute. “We both kinda suck at calculus.”

Almost.

“It’s fine,” Midori sighs, rubs at his shoulder.

“Uh, I’m gonna order something! I’ll be right back!” 

Tetora shrugs his bag off onto the chair opposite Midori and sprints toward the front of the cafe. Midori can’t help but watch as Tetora places his palms on the counter and bounces on the balls of his feet as he chats with the barista, too full of energy for something as simple as placing a coffee order.

He looks back over at Midori as he waits at the bar for his order. Midori jumps a little in his seat from being caught staring and attempts to look busy with his phone, completely missing the way Tetora startles as well and studies his shoes.

“What’d you get?” Tetora asks when he finally returns.

“Just a cappuccino.”

“What? It’s gonna be summer soon! You can’t order hot drinks during the summer,” Tetora chides.

Midori frowns, stares at whatever abomination Tetora ordered. “Well, what is _that?_ You don’t seem like someone who should be drinking something with so much sugar.”

Tetora takes a sip of the monstrosity—it has to be at _least_ 25% whipped cream—and grins.

“What, you don’t like frappuccinos?” Tetora twists the straw around a bit before looking up at Midori, who can’t help but shrink a bit under Tetora’s concentrated gaze. “I used to think they were sort of a girly drink, but my roommate told me I was stupid and that drinks don’t have genders.”

“Your roommate sounds smart.” 

“She is!” Tetora beams. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Midori feels funny and tries to dispel the feeling with a sip of his cappuccino (gone cold, as expected). “Is…is she your girlfriend?”

“What?” Tetora flushes. “No! No way! We’re just friends. Besides, I totally don’t have time for a girlfriend.”

“Ah,” Midori says for lack of anything better.

“Do you?” Tetora looks up briefly before returning his attention to his drink. “Have a girlfriend, I mean.”

“No,” Midori says, probably _way_ too fast. 

But it’s true. Not that he’d ever particularly want one.

“Ah,” Tetora echoes. “Well, you could totally get any girl you want.”

“Um.” Midori flounders because, well, what the hell is he supposed to say to _that?_

“J-just because you’re very polite and tall and not bad-looking!” Tetora’s voice rises, and Midori is thankful the cafe is full enough to drown him out. “And you’re probably studying something super cool too!”

“Just agriculture.” Midori shrugs and ignores the warmth growing on his cheeks under Tetora’s compliments.

“Woah, that is super cool! I knew it! Do you have your own garden?”

Midori thinks about the basil and thyme growing in his apartment. Actually, he really needs to water them when he gets home. He’d been so caught up in his nervousness for their meetup that he’d forgotten to do half his morning to-do list. 

“We have some herbs growing in our kitchen. Nothing special.”

“Herbs, huh? That’s neat. I can’t grow anything. Can I see your herb garden sometime?”

Tetora is looking at him with such interest that Midori thinks he might combust on the spot. What exactly is wrong with this guy?

“I guess so?” Midori shrugs, does everything in his power to get Tetora’s attention off of him. “Uh, what are you studying?”

“Me? Early childhood education.”

Midori tries to imagine it, and it’s pretty easy to envision. Tetora is probably one of the only people he’s met who has enough stamina to deal with children. 

“I volunteer as a karate teacher too.” Tetora pulls at a piece of his hair. “That’s what I _really_ wanna do, but it’s good to have a backup plan, you know?”

“That’s smart of you,” Midori agrees.

“You think?” Tetora perks up. It’s kind of cute.

Midori can feel his nerves (well, _some_ of them) disappearing, and a warmth he hasn’t felt in a while replaces the anxious feeling in his chest. Tetora shines under the cozy lighting in the cafe, eyes sparkling as they meet Midori’s own. 

Maybe becoming better friends outside of their weekly Discord calls wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

* * *

True to his word (and at the hand of Tetora’s insistent nagging), Midori invites Tetora over to his apartment a few weeks later to see his tiny herb garden. Shinobu is around, and Tetora ends up staying late enough to order takeout with them and stick around for a movie night.

And, for better or worse, it becomes a bit of a routine. And Midori can feel his resolve breaking more and more each time they hang out.

Even when they’re _not_ hanging out, Tetora is sending him texts every few hours—photos of cute characters he sees in store windows that he knows Midori will like, pictures of friendly neighborhood dogs, or frantic texts about the latest assignment he’s forgotten to start.

In fact, he’s mildly lost in thoughts about how cute (objectively speaking, of course) Tetora would look holding one of those neighborhood dogs when Shinobu nudges him.

“I’m heading out to study with Kanzaki.” Shinobu smiles. “Have fun with Tetora.”

“Oh.” Midori straightens up in his chair. “Yeah, thanks. Say hello to Kanzaki for me.”

Shinobu hums and Midori hears the click of the front door from his room. It won’t be long before Tetora shows up—they’d planned on gaming for a while and _hopefully_ studying if they didn’t get too caught up in whatever they ended up playing.

They hadn’t hung out in nearly three weeks, and it’d been a hell of a time because, with each passing day, Midori felt stranger and stranger. It’d only been over the past week that he’d realized the uneasy feeling that bloomed every time he thought about Tetora’s smile before he fell asleep was because he—

Ugh. It was embarrassing to even admit it to himself. He doesn’t know how he’d ever manage to confess something like that _out loud._

Before he has time to overthink everything any further, he hears a sharp knock on his door. He can already feel his heart pick up speed as he gets up and makes his way out of his bedroom.

“Hey!” Tetora is glowing, as always, when Midori greets him at the door.

“Hi.” Midori can’t help but give a small smile as he ushers Tetora into the apartment.

They end up with their backs against the foot of the couch in the living room. Tetora had insisted Midori finally do a Stardew Valley playthrough while he was around, so he starts up his Playstation and they set up camp on the floor.

“What do you think? More fun than farming in real life?” Tetora asks around a mouthful of chips.

Midori raises an eyebrow at him. He’s just finished building a fence around his garden, and he’s making a trip into the town—maybe he’ll head toward the pier and show Tetora how to fish.

“Well, it’s certainly easier.”

Tetora hums and straightens up against the couch. He gasps and points at one of the villagers.

“Is that the girl we met earlier? Are you going to romance her?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know. Probably not.”

“You like one of the other girls better?” Tetora asks.

It’s funny how juvenile Tetora can sound at times, with all this who-likes-who stuff. It’s sort of endearing, but right now it’s just making Midori flustered as hell. Stupid.

“I mean,” Midori starts, and he’s not sure if now is the right time to be announcing something like this, but he’ll _have_ to eventually if he wants to keep Tetora around as a friend, right? “I don’t really like any of them?”

“Oh? What’s your type of girl then?” Tetora is picking at a hole in his jeans but staring far too intently at Midori.

“My type isn’t really a girl,” Midori says after a beat of silence, and he can feel his face turning the brightest shade of red.

“Oh,” is all Tetora says, and, _ah_ , Midori’s gone and fucked it up. Except—"I…wouldn’t want to romance any of the girls either.”

“You wouldn’t?” Midori chews at the inside of his cheek, sets down the controller.

“Nah. My type is more… What I mean to say is I—” Tetora bunches the knees of his jeans between his fingers and turns away, uncharacteristically shy. “I would really only want to romance a character kind of like you, you know?”

“Like me?” Midori asks, a little breathless.

“Yeah.” Tetora is staring at his hands now, brows drawn together in an almost comical fashion. “Someone nice and handsome and patient with me.”

“So, not a girl.”

“Not a girl,” Tetora confirms.

“And in real life?”

“In real life what?”

“Your type.”

Tetora is still avoiding eye contact with Midori—a first, which makes Midori wonder if they’re on the precipice of something big.

“Someone like you.”

He’s already too far in it now. _For once, there’s no point in holding back_ , Midori thinks.

“Someone _like_ me or _me_?”

Tetora finally manages to look up from where he’s fiddling with his jeans to meet Midori’s gaze. It’s maybe the first time he’s seen Tetora look so wildly uncertain and nervous, and it’s making Midori a little crazy, and he isn’t sure he can keep his thoughts straight but—

“You.”

Ah.

Good.

It’s graceless and done with a rare sense of bravado, but Midori can’t help leaning over the space between them and pressing his lips against Tetora’s. His hand lands on the back of Tetora’s neck as they pull away, and he feels embarrassed—no, _enamored_ —by the starry-eyed look Tetora is giving him.

“So, you’d romance me too?” Tetora asks with a toothy smile, far too cheeky for his own good.

Midori rolls his eyes, gives a gentle push to Tetora’s chest and picks his controller back up. They have a game to play, after all.

But when Tetora scoots over, close enough to share wistful looks and gentle touches with, he doesn’t pull away.

How could he?

**Author's Note:**

> me: has been into enstars for 2 weeks  
> me: time to write a fic
> 
> this fic is for one of my bffs who is a Big Midoteto Stan and also A Gamer (derogatory) i hope u like this clown. everyone else, i hope u Also liked it. i will be writing chiakao in the future i think so keep an eye out for that if you like rarepair suffering
> 
> leave a comment if ur so inclined. i eat them as afternoon snacks
> 
> @honikicombs on twt


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